286,) and by Suidas, who copied the history of Eunapius.] [Footnote 12: -- Caetera segnis; Ad facinus velox; penitus regione remotas Impiger ire vias.
This allusion of Claudian (in Rufin.i.

241) is again explained by the circumstantial narrative of Zosimus, (l.v.p.288, 289.)] But Rufinus soon experienced, that a prudent minister should constantly secure his royal captive by the strong, though invisible chain of habit; and that the merit, and much more easily the favor, of the absent, are obliterated in a short time from the mind of a weak and capricious sovereign.

While the praefect satiated his revenge at Antioch, a secret conspiracy of the favorite eunuchs, directed by the great chamberlain Eutropius, undermined his power in the palace of Constantinople.

They discovered that Arcadius was not inclined to love the daughter of Rufinus, who had been chosen, without his consent, for his bride; and they contrived to substitute in her place the fair Eudoxia, the daughter of Bauto, [13] a general of the Franks in the service of Rome; and who was educated, since the death of her father, in the family of the sons of Promotus.

The young emperor, whose chastity had been strictly guarded by the pious care of his tutor Arsenius, [14] eagerly listened to the artful and flattering descriptions of the charms of Eudoxia: he gazed with impatient ardor on her picture, and he understood the necessity of concealing his amorous designs from the knowledge of a minister who was so deeply interested to oppose the consummation of his happiness.